Quite bright & clear. N. wind ― all day. ―

Not a very ‘comfortable’ day, tho. Chilled, by having the windows open ― observing 5 steamers &c. ― landing of oxen & sheep, ― & towing of oil barrels.

A newspaper, & one number of Once a Week, from F.L. containing AT’s Grandmother:1 but no letter.

Miss Goldsmid’s Athenæums are the most interesting of the ‘papers’, ― it seems to me ―: the Saturday R. I dislike more & more.

Eyes bad, head bad: ― but at 1, or 2 ― began to work on Grenfell’s Philæ, & worked till 6.10. ― industriously, but ‘έτζι κ’έτζι’!2 ―

Did not go out.

Dined at 6.45 ― &, sitting longer than usual, G. waxed cross & bounced about.

Whereat I meekly began to trace (pen) out the first 1860 Spezia drawing. At 10.15 to bed.

The Forts came down at 6.30 ― “to wish me good-bye” ―― they go tonight, silly foolk & no-way interesting. The Maudes are quiet. Only Mrs. Craven is heard ― playing stoutly.

Just this day a year ago I began to think ― hardly to realize ――― that Ann was going to leave me. ―

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

  1. Tennyson’s “The Grandmother’s Apology” was published in Once a Week on 16 July 1859, pp. 41-43, with an illustration by John Millais; see Kathryn Ledbetter’s Tennyson and Victorian Periodicals: Commodities in Context. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. 53-55. [↩]
  2. So so. [↩]